The Pensieve of Lily Potter
by Obsessed.with.writing
Summary: One Monday night in April, Harry Potter is visited by a Ministry Wizard who gives Harry the key to his mother's memories, unlocking the life of his mother that he never knew, telling him what she was like from her own perspective
1. Chapter 1

**A.N.- Ok I haven't had inspiration for any other fanfics of mine, and right now I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter. Slightly being a huge understatement. So I thought I'd try my hand at Harry Potter fanfic. I must warn you, if you've never read my fanfics before you should know that I'm pretty bad with updating, so it may get updated very slowly but I will try!**

**Anywho, this is starting with Harry, but it is mainly gonna be about Lily. She's my favourite character, even if we don't know that much about her. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, this amazing universe was created by JK Rowling and she owns all of the characters.**

Harry was now twenty two, his life had never been better. Things had just begun to seem normal. That was until there was a knock on the door late one Monday in April.

Opening the door, Harry was greeted by a formally dressed wizard who obviously worked for the Ministry. The wizard was just inches taller than Harry, and was wearing deep crimson robes. The unfamiliar wizard's eyes lingered on Harry's forehead, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous scar, before they darted to his eyes. "Can I help you?" Harry asked, confused as to why the strange wizard was on his doorstep.

Clearing his throat, the wizard frowned then cleaned off his robes, trying to make what seemed like non-existent dust disappear off his perfectly clean robes. "Well, Mr Potter, I hate to be the one to bring you this, but it seems that there was a bit of a, ah, mix up at the Ministry when your parents died."

Before the Ministry worker could say anything more, Harry frowned and interrupted. "What do you mean a mix up? What could you possibly have mixed up?"

"Well, it seems that there was something your mother left you that was never given to you." The Ministry wizard said nervously. "What with everyone thinking that You-Know-Who had died, and the fact you were a baby, it wasn't presented to you, and we only found it again when reworking all the systems at the Ministry."

"What did she leave me?" Harry asked feeling both overwhelmed and shocked.

"It's a bit complicated, it seems as if before your mother died, she extracted her memories and stored them as pensieve, I understand you're familiar with this magic." The wizard began to dig through his robes and pulled out what seemed to be an over sized flask. "We thought you'd want this returned to you, since you are the rightful owner of it."

Harry took the flask from the wizard, feeling as if he had to be extra careful as he took hold of the flask. This all seemed unreal to him, it was something so unexpected and hard to get his head around. His mother had been dead for such a long time, he'd never known her. He'd been left his parents' gold, their possessions, but he'd never thought it would be something so personal as her memories. All he had ever wanted was to know his parents, and here, in this flask, were the unchanged, personal memories of his mother. He looked up at the Ministry wizard and nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

The wizard nodded back, before bowing lowly as he disapparated.

It was a few minutes before Harry could move from the spot he was standing in. He carefully closed the door when he realised how silly he probably looked standing in the doorway of his own home, holding a large flask. Slowly, he walked back into his house and walked over to Ginny. She looked up at him and frowned. "Who was it?" She asked in a rather quiet tone, obviously seeing the bewildered look on Harry's face. Glancing over at her, he told her all about the exchange he'd just had with the wizard in crimson robes.

"Are you going to do it then? Watch her memories? Find out what she was like?" Ginny asked him as the two of them sat down, staring at the flask that was still held in Harry's hands.

Harry wanted to see them. More than anything he wanted to see what his mother was like, what her memories were like. "I don't know. I really want to. But, it's something I've never expected to get, it's something I'm not prepared for. I'm scared to see what she was like. What memories will she have put in here?"

"It doesn't matter. Harry, these are your mum's memories, things that she thought were important. The only thing you'll know of her that comes directly from her instead of from what others thought of her. You know you have to." Ginny said in a soft, comforting voice, before lightly placing her hand on top of his. "She wouldn't leave you it if she didn't think it was important."

"Yeah, I know." He mumbled softly. "And I will look at them, but not tonight."

**A.N.- I'm sorry it's pretty short but it seemed right to finish it there, it just did. I will be updating this pretty quickly because I want to continue this one and it really intrigues me. I hope you enjoyed it. Review telling me if you did or if you didn't and why.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer- I own nothing, Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling**

It had been exactly a week since Harry had received the flask. It sat in the living room, not ignored, but not acknowledged either. Ginny hadn't said anything about to him, but she was worried that he wouldn't open the flask and see Lily's memories. She was afraid that Harry would miss something huge. From what Ginny had heard about Harry's mother, she knew that the late Lily Potter would have collected the pensieve to give to her son for a _reason_. It worried Ginny that he was wasting this amazing opportunity.

What she didn't know was it was the only thing that occupied Harry's mind. He wanted nothing more than to open the flask and become submerged in the memories of his mother. But he had been told when he was in his first year, that it wasn't always a good idea to become obsessed with your wants and desires. Harry remembered Dumbledore telling him how men had gone mad by looking into the Mirror of Erised and with what they desired the most. Well, here was part of what Harry had always wanted. He was scared of what he would feel after, and if he would feel after, and if he would end up obsessed with his mother's memories.

But after a week of resisting the urge of seeing the memories, he was finally deciding to risk it. He wanted to find out what she had been like. He wanted something of his mother that he could remember that didn't have to do with death.

So, carefully unscrewing the top of the flask, he let himself see what she'd seen.

He saw a young red head sitting on a bed, with things that he remembered from his first year at Hogwarts. She reminded him of Hermione, just a little. The girl was sitting there checking everything over and over again. Harry sat down on the edge of her bed and smiled lightly. He could see her eyes. People were right, he did have the same eyes.

"Lily! Come on, you've been up there for a long time, get down here!" An unfamiliar voice shouted.

Young Lily looked up at the door and laughed slightly. "Coming dad!" She called before she began to pack up all her things into a trunk, extremely neatly and carefully.

Once she'd finished packing her things up she headed downstairs in a half skip, half run. Harry followed, grinning from ear to ear, happy to see such a happy version of his mother.

"Honestly Lily, you're going to be fine, and you won't forget anything, just leave your stuff alone." A woman laughed as she hugged little Lily.

"But I want to see everything, what if they forgot to tell me to get something? Or they realise I don't have magic or something like that?" Lily asked while bouncing on the spot. "I just want to get there already, Severus told me so much about it I just want to experience it!" Lily laughed before jumping up and down again excitedly. She couldn't help but keep smiling and jumping around.

"You're going tomorrow, I'm sure you can wait until then." The woman laughed.

Harry had never seen any pictures of his grandparents, on either side. His mother's parents seemed extremely normal. His grandfather looked kind and welcoming. He had the same green eyes. At least now he knew where his mother got her eyes from.

His grandmother, she was also smiling, and seemed just as happy as her husband. She had the same dark red hair that Lily had. He smiled lightly, it was something he never thought he'd find out.

"Ok, let's eat then." Harry's grandmother said happily.

Sitting down at the table already was Petunia. She didn't seem just like a younger version of the woman Harry had known and disliked at some point. Though she still had the long craning neck, she just seemed sulky to Harry above anything else.

"Oh come on, Tunia, Lily will be back at Christmas." Their father said before tucking into his food.

Petunia scoffed slightly. "Like I'd care about her coming back, let her stay at her freak school, I don't care if she never comes back."

Harry saw his mother's face, she didn't seem as upset as he thought she'd be. It was different for her parents though. They looked appalled that their other daughter was speaking like this about her sister. "Petunia, apologise to your sister!" Their father said.

"Why? It's the truth, she's a freak."

"Don't worry dad, she's just jealous she can't go, I'm not taking it personally." Lily said smiling.

The conversation after that became typically muggle. Talking about the weather, the news, everything and anything that they would usually.

The scene changed and Harry was in the back of a car with an extremely excited and talkative little Lily. "And then after we got sorted the food just appeared in front of us! It was just so cool! And then we were sitting there, and the headmaster told us stuff and just…it was just cool! And then we all got scared by this ghost. He likes being called Sir Nicolas, but he's called Nearly Headless Nick because he got decapitated but didn't, and when we asked about his name he pulled his ear and we saw the insides of his neck! And then the stupid boys James Potter and Sirius Black tried to do it and started pulling on their own ears. And then we went to a class and the teacher was a cat! And we were just amazed. And then Professor Slughorn taught us how to do potions, and Sev was really really good at it, and I was ok at it. But then you remember how Mr. Ollivander said that my wand was good for charms? He was right! I'm top of my class in charms!"

Lily's father laughed as he drove. "Yes, yes, we know, you told us in your letters silly."

But Lily was far from finished talking about her first term at Hogwarts. She spoke about owls, the brooms, Quidditch. Everything that she could think of about the school, the lessons, anything about the amazing and new wizarding world.

When they finally got home, Lily carried as much of her stuff inside as she could as quickly as possible. Her father chuckled at her before grabbing the rest of her things and helping her to the house.

After everything was in her room, Lily pulled out all of her books, trying to decide what she wanted to study first. But before Lily could even begin to study, her sister walked into the room with a group of her friends.

Lily, the ever polite, smiled up to the girls cheerily. "Hello, you must be Tunia's friends, I'm her sister, Lily."

The girls looked at each other and giggled a slightly curel laugh. "Oh we've heard about you, you're the one who goes to a 'special' school and thinks she's a witch, right?"

One of the girls strolled over and picked up Lily's wand. "Is this how you cast spells?"

"No, it's a prop." Lily said hesitantly, thinking extremely hard about what she could say.

"A prop? What do you mean?" The girl said, throwing the wand over to Lily.

"Tunia's just being funny, I don't think I'm a witch, I got a place at a performing arts school, we're doing a play about witches, I told Petunia and she must just be making a joke and trying to be funny." Lily said. "Now if you'll excuse me I'm trying to learn stuff."

The girls left and Harry could see the tears in her eyes. She closed her door and put her books back in her trunk, he wand in a little box in the bottom of her wardrobe, everything in it's own place, away from the prying eyes of the muggles who didn't know about what she really was. Wiping her eyes, the girl put on a brave face and sat in her room, not entirely sure what to do now.

The girls left a little while later and Lily decided that she should talk to Petunia.

Walking to the landing, Lily looked at her sister as she walked back up the stairs. "You didn't need to tell them, you could have just kept quiet. Mum and dad are."

Petunia sneered at her sister. "Everyone should know what a freak you are. And you shouldn't have lied to them."

"What, so they could have made fun of me? No! I know you're jealous Petunia, but now you're acting stupidly."

"Go back to your freak school, you don't belong here anymore."

Little Lily looked up at her sister, anger in her eyes and just walked away. Not saying a word.

**A.N.- Ok this took me a while to write, I'm sorry, but yeah, I'm really enjoying this, it will take me a while though, so I'm sorry. So tell me what you think, I hope you enjoy it. I'm not really gonna say much else, review and tell me what you like and stuff. 3**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter or the characters, that is owned by the talented and amazing JK Rowling.**

The next time the scene changed, Lily was sitting under a tree, with a book rested on her knees as she read it quietly. She seemed at peace, extremely calm and at home, more at home than how she had acted when she was with Petunia at her real home. It made Harry smile, he enjoyed seeing his mother enjoying herself. She continued to read, flipping the page after a while, reading the book almost greedily.

It seemed as though nothing could disturb her, and if something did, she wouldn't get bothered by it, she'd just…ignore it. He was pretty surprised at this because…well he didn't think that anyone could seem so lost in thought, even Hermione usually got distracted when the boys started talking, it seemed as if no matter what came near her, his mum wouldn't get distracted.

After less than a second, there was a noise coming nearer to her, laughing, more than one person laughing, and it was definitely boys. Lily rolled her eyes, visibly, but continued to read, ignoring whoever was coming towards her. Harry turned, to see who it was. Of course, he already sort of knew who it was. His father, and the rest of the Marauders.

"Hey Evans! What ya doing? Why you out here alone?" Sirius' voice came loudly and obnoxiously as all four of them ran towards her. Lily didn't have anything against Remus or Peter, Peter was Peter, and didn't have anything that could show him as annoying or anything, he was more or less harmless, and Remus was smart enough to make him have some interesting conversations. Harry had always thought this, well…since he had been told that his mother had a slight hatred for his father before they got together.

Lily ignored Sirius and continued to read. She was silent as she flicked to the next page. It amused Harry to see his mother ignoring such a boisterous and loud person like Sirius. He saw the frown on his face, before he turned to James Potter. James was smirking at Lily. "Hey Evans! My mate's asked you a question, why not answer it? Or better yet, go out with me." He smirked.

This time, Lily couldn't ignore him. "No." She said simply, not even looking up from the book. She seemed calm, but in her voice, the no had a slightly irritated tone to it. She really didn't like being asked out every day.

Unfortunately for Lily, James had a different way of looking at it. As she continued to read, the book was snatched from her hands causing her to look up. Glaring over at James, who was holding the book over his head, smirking, Lily stood up. "Give me my book back Potter. I'm not going to ask nicely again."

Sirius snorted slightly. "You call that nicely? Jesus Evans, you need to learn what nice is." He smirked.

Lily ignored him, watching James. "Give me the book back, now Potter."

James smirked. "Say the magic word." He teased.

Lily shrugged and pulled her wand out. "Alright." Aiming her wand at the book in James' hand she smiled sweetly. "Wingardium leviosa." She smiled as the spell worked and the book slipped through James' fingers and high above him.

"Yeah real clever Evans, one those weren't the words I was thinking about, and two, now you can't get it either." He said smirking, his voice sounding smug.

Lily's eyes flickered to him before she smiled. "You forgot one thing though, what goes up…" Lily stopped focusing on the spell and the book came tumbling down, right onto James' head. "Must come down."

"Ow! Bloody hell Evans that hurt!" He said rubbing his head where the heavy book had landed on his head. Lily walked over and picked it up from the floor where it had dropped after his head. Harry couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation. It was weird, but he could see reasons as to why his dad liked her.

"Well you shouldn't have taken my book, I told you to give it back, you didn't, so I had to take action and get it back." She smiled sweetly before sitting back down and opening the book back up. "You should go see Madam Pomfrey, that was quite a big bump on the head." She said, no malice in her voice, no hatred, no amusement. Her voice sounded rather….bland. Harry couldn't understand it, she wasn't angry at him, but she wasn't amused at it.

The scene changed at this point, Lily and Snape in the library surrounded by the thick books, as both of them studied hard, scribbling furiously with their quills. Harry silently sat down on the table and watched them. Snape looked the same as he'd seen in all the pensieve. The same hair, the same face, the way he hunched over his paper was even the same.

Lily Evans huffed and put the quill down frowning at the book in front of her. "How are you so good at potions? I mean I can't do it the way you do it, you just…get it done. How?" She asked exasperatedly.

Snape looked at her and chuckled before continuing to read and write. "It just comes naturally to me, just like charms does for you."

"Yeah but, charms comes naturally to me because I have a wand that's good for charms, that's different to your natural talent for potions." Lily said sighing as she closed the heavy book in front of her and rested her arms on it.

Snape chuckled and shook his head. "Lily, Slughorn loves you, does it honestly matter that I'm just a bit better at it than you? You still get perfect grades."

"Yes, it does matter, because I don't know how you do it." Lily huffed. Harry couldn't help but chuckle a bit when she said that. He was reminded of Hermione being infuriated at how well Harry was doing in potions in sixth year.

"Lils, calm down, it's only a class, you're much much better at everything else." He laughed slightly. It was completely different from what Harry had always been used to when it came to his old professor, even when he had respect for the teacher, he'd never really seen him that happy.

Lily sighed and rested her chin on her hands. "Look at it this way." Snape said after a while. "You're better at potions than Potter and Black and that lot." He said in a venomous tone.

"Yeah but Potter and Black are better at transfigurations than me, which is so annoying." Lily banged her head against the book groaning. "I hate people with natural talent." She mumbled.

Both Harry and Snape chuckled at her, before Snape spoke again. "You're going to have to hate yourself then, because you've got a crazy natural talent for magic completely." He said slowly before sighing and continuing to write up the homework he was doing. Pushing his hair back he frowned. "Charms homework, what did you get for the fourth question?" He asked curiously.

Lily frowned and looked at her friend. "I'm not doing Charms homework, I did that a few days ago." Lily said slowly.

Snape frowned. "We got it like two days ago." He said slowly.

"Yeah, and I did it the day we got it. It was easy enough." She said simply as she looked at the incredulous look she was getting from Snape. She couldn't help but laugh a bit. "What? Is it that weird?"

He nodded slightly dumbly. "Uhm, yeah." He laughed. "I bet your friends in Gryffindor were upset you'd rather be doing homework than hanging out with you." Snape said. "Have you got the homework on you?" Quickly changing the conversation.

Lily frowned. "Don't start on Gryffindor again please, I know you don't like them, and you know I don't like your friends, but still, we keep it out of our friendship." She said slowly, before frowning more. "And you're not copying my charms homework the same way you wouldn't let me copy your potions homework." She scolded slightly.

Snape huffed slightly. "You could help me though."

Lily shook her head. "Nope, you've got to do it by yourself, I've told you this before, I'm not going to help you, because you're pretty good at it, just get it done yourself." She said.

He huffed. "Slytherins are sly, we're supposed to get things done cunningly and stuff." He said slowly.

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing, his old teacher wanting to cheat. But his mother laughed and shook his head. "No, no no and no, get over it Sev, sorry but I'm not going to help you cheat."

He sighed. "Fine, but only for you, don't tell anyone else." He mumbled.

Lily looked at her friend and sighed, shaking her head as she collected up her things. "That's the problem with you Severus, you care too much about what other people think. Whether that's your housemates, or the idiot group, or the teachers, or me. You want to impress someone."

"And you don't? You always go on about homework and grades and all of this, you're always proving yourself right and stuff." He mumbled quietly. He looked extremely uncomfortable, as if they'd had this conversation before.

"I do things that are good, like homework and classes, you try to make people like you because of the bad things you do." Lily shook her head. "It's stupid." She said as she began to walk out of the library.

"Where are you going?" Snape asked seeming confused as to why Lily was going.

"I'm going back to the commonroom, I'll talk to you in class tomorrow alright? We have Herbology together." Lily said slowly. "See you Sev." She said before walking out of the library.

**A.N.- I'm so sorry I haven't wrote this for a while, I've been meaning to, it's just…I get distracted easily. Anyway I hope you enjoyed these memories, they are going to get a bit better, but obviously I have to get them into some of the older years when the drama and such happens. But yeah, I thought it was time to add the Marauders and Snape into it :) review if you like it, or not.**


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